Okay, so it’s not quite that simple! You can’t eat just anything you want- after all, stuffing your face with four bags of Chips Ahoy is not the best way to build quality muscle. Can you do it? I don’t know, who’d want to try! What happens if you fail? You’ve got a bowling ball stomach and that glazed zombie look from a walking sugar coma!

So let’s stick to some tried and true methods. If you want to build sick muscle, I mean slabs of beef hanging off the bone muscle, you need to do two things- lift heavy weight with low repetition and eat protein. Lot’s of protein. Sure, that’s an oversimplified method to what is really an artful science, but you get the basics. You need to stress your muscles and break them down, then give them the fuel they need to rebuild. By adding stress (weight) to the muscle, you will force it to grow.

But what if you don’t want freaky huge muscles, what can you do? Same thing, just on a modified scale. Think about your basic push up. Let’s say you can do 50 pushups with little strain. How can you build the pectoral muscles involved in a properly executed push up? Two ways: increase reps or increase the weight on the push up. Increasing reps is easy, and you can increase the amount of weight you control by shifting your body at an angle. But the increased stress on the muscle will cause the tissue to break down, and by replenishing with protein, you can rebuild it back. Stronger. Faster. Leaner.

The awesome thing about muscle building routines is the ability to control the shape of your body. No one ever thinks of this, but you really can change how your body is shaped through exercise. You can’t control your height, but you can control how you look. Wide arm pull ups can build a broader back, which can make a thick waist look narrow. Hanging knee crunches and oblique exercises can trim the waistline even further. Add to that a diet low in fat, and high in lean protein, and you can literally build a broad shouldered look for any person.

This is simple to accomplish through modeling. No, I’m not talking about you on the runway, I’m talking about finding someone with a physique you admire (preferably an athlete, I mean, if you’re admiring Carmine at the pizzeria for his squatty pot belly, that’s up to you, but you may not be too into this site!) Pick an athlete you like, and model your workout routine after theirs. Like a swimmer’s body? You may not be able to put in the hours in the pool they do, but you can imitate the exercise forms they perform. Focus on shoulders, pulling exercises with the back, mid range repetitions with body weight. Think long lean muscle building routines. That’s modeling. Just find someone successful at their muscle building and use them as a platform for your own routine.

And drink water. No one ever drinks enough water, then complains about headache, butt-ache, body ache. Hydrate! It’s important enough to say it twice. Drink more water. Plain, easy to handle water. About one to one and a half ounce per pound of body weight per day. Trust me, this will help you build muscles too!